Pencil On Paper By JHM

Donald Johnson: Vocals
Javier Hernandez-Miyares: Drums, Percussion, Strings, Bells, Lead Guitar
Roberto Poveda: Acoustic Guitar
Alina Brouwer: Organ
Gustavo Amarante: Bass

lyrics and melody written by steven pacia:

if all of your fears are out tonight;
don’t open your windows,
don’t open your doors.
maybe he’ll wait on the balcony,
i don’t know.

come in here and make me high.
if you don’t get wild i won’t care.
some crowds they sing so merrily,
while others sigh.

all the kings horses and all the kings men,
they didn’t know Humpty had fallen again.
maybe he’s just off his therapy;
i don’t know.

come in here and make me high.
if you don’t get wild i won’t care.
some crowds they sing so merrily,
while others sigh.

if all of your fears are out tonight;
don’t open your windows,
don’t open your doors.
maybe he’ll wait on the balcony,
i don’t know.

Juliet was written by Steven Pacia and Javier Hernandez-Miyares.
Recording was arranged and produced by Javier Hernandez-Miyares.

Drawing By JHM

The video was shot at Cats Paw recording studio in NYC, and the tracks were recorded at Spectrum Studios in Mineola. Most of this song was recorded on new years eve in the hours that arced between 1985 and 1986.
The song was written by Lou Reed and this version was arranged and produced by Javier Hernandez-Miyares

This is the High Fidelity version:

Fee Fi Fo Fum will always be:
Alberto Hernandez- Miyares – Bass
Donald Johnson – Vocals
Javier Hernandez-Miyares – Guitar
John Easter Mills – Drums
Mary K – Keys and Vox

Some words placed together evoke many other words. This is for you that want to know what the lyrics mean:

Zipperhead

gather all the sacred songs
for out of body release
(old and cherished music is played at funerals for the souls of the dead)
wrap them all in cotton gauze
in twenty seven degrees
(the songs are aching and fragile and appropriate for the dead of winter)

oh my darling
(what a friend will say to the grieving spouse, when there is nothing left to say)

brave the wind with Capricorn
(imagining the huddled mourners at a January interment)

follow orders for free
what we do when we have nothing left and surrender to religion, the truth etc.)

bow your head and raise your eyes
(literally what you see in the crowd during a funeral prayer, also referring to the defiance we attempt to mount against our own similar fates)
see the man on the tree
(look at the crucifix , ie be a witness to suffering; and a reference to the scene in Amarcord which mocks our pathos)

oh my darling

dry the tears hemp mourning cloth
(a Japanese garment for mourning and a reference to using substances to lighten the weight of the moment)

pastry cart on the scene
(the necessity of bringing back the corporal at the end of a funeral, reminding us that we are still among the living. also referring to the attempts to lighten what feels so heavy at the moment, or not so heavy to others)

seven angels coming now
could it all be a dream
(refers to the mourner’s fantasy of the apocalypse and desire for an after life)

oh my darling

Lyrics and annotation by Steven Pacia

Sineparade:
Steven Pacia – Vox
Alex Garcia – Drums
Ariel de la Portilla – Bass
Javier Hernandez-Miyares – Guitar
J. Armen – Guitar

A deep horizon:

Barrels of lovers spilling,

From the tombs of time.

In spite of some popular misconceptions, oil doesn’t come from dead dinosaurs. In fact, most scientists agree that oil comes from creatures the size of a pinhead. These one-celled creatures, known as diatoms, aren’t really plants, but share one very important characteristic with them – they take light from the sun and convert it into energy: They are in love with light!

This recording is first published here; Enjoy!

Review From The New York Press
Zipperhead Show
April 17, 17 Frost Art and Performance Space, 17 Frost St. (betw. Union Ave. & Lorimer St.), Brooklyn, zipperheadshow.com; 8, $20. A multi-media theater experience, featuring music from Sineparade and video art on three screens courtesy of Alex Itin, this show focuses on a banker who escaped the 9/11 attacks by being in a hotel banging his secretary instead of at his desk.Watch (and listen!) as the drama unfolds. The Bottom Line: At some point, the theater in Williamsburg has to catch up to the music, dance, dining and art.We’ve got our fingers crossed that this will be the show to usher in a new era.
The first and successful run of Zipperhead at 17 Frost ended tonight.

Although there were moments of sheer terror, we all survived intact thanks to the support of:

Steven Pacia
Alex Garcia
Ariel de La Portilla
J. Armen
Manuel de La Portilla
Alex Itin
Theresa Scott
Michael Cesarcyck
Aakash Nihalani
David Scarborough
Natalie Scarborough
Paul Sheehan
Ben Vershbow
Josef Raffoni
Poster Boy
Alex Morosi
Havana On The Hudson
Me

Zipperhead Animation Beta 2.0 from Alex Itin on Vimeo.

Read the reviews:
Greenpoint Gazette
Encore Magazine
Time Out New York

See The photostream here.

Cuban Pasteles and Croquetas by Havana On The Hudson Caterers

Maria Victoria de Bernard provided a feast for the palate, with her Cuban delicacies.

In this picture: Mary Ann Schmidt, Julio Hernandez-Miyares, and Maria Victoria de Bernard

Photo By Javier Hernandez-Miyares

Rene Mederos Obituary and link to images

Rene Mederos on Wikipedia

Rene Mederos On Facebook

Shepard Fairy Appropriated a Mederos Image (Article)

In this short video, i page through a book of Rene’s iconic Vietnam silkscreens. He created these images in 1972 during his second visit to North Vietnam, and everything depicted was witnessed by him.
These images were first published as silkscreens in a large format, and later a few hundred copies of this book were produced: each image had to be redone in miniature form in a process that Rene described to me as something only possible – “because we were crazy!”
My copy was given to me by Rene, and he added a dedication, which i read whenever i want to feel his presence.

Prog rockers Sineparade and video artist Alex Itin collaborate on a musical portrait of a trader who escaped death on 9/11, only to fall prey to a fast-growing brain tumor.
When:
Sat 8pm , Apr 24 8pm , May 1 8pm , May 8 8pm , May 15 8pm

Link to Zipperhead on Timeout Events.

Painting By Javier Hernandez-Miyares Based On A Drawing By Diego Rivera

We can say without exaggeration that never has civilization been menaced so seriously as today. The Vandals, with instruments which were barbarous and comparatively ineffective, blotted out the culture of antiquity in one corner of our planet. But today we see world civilization, united in its historic destiny, reeling under the blows of reactionary forces armed with the entire arsenal of modern technology. We are by no means thinking only of another world war that draws near. Even in times of ‘peace’ the position of art and science has become absolutely intolerable.

In so far as it originates with an individual, in so far as it brings into play subjective talents to create something which brings about an objective enriching of culture, any philosophical, sociological, scientific or artistic discovery seems to be the fruit of a precious chance; that is to say, the manifestation, more or less spontaneous, of necessity. Such creations cannot be slighted, whether from the standpoint of general knowledge (which interprets the existing world) or of revolutionary knowledge (which, the better to change the world, requires an exact analysis of the laws which govern its movement). Specifically, we cannot remain indifferent to the intellectual conditions under which creative activity takes place; nor should we fail to pay all respect to those particular laws which govern intellectual creation.

In the contemporary world we must recognize the ever more widespread destruction of those conditions under which intellectual creation is possible. From this follows of necessity an increasingly manifest degradation not only of the work of art but also of the specifically ‘artistic’ personality. The regime of Bush/Obama, and American idol, has reduced those who still consent to take up pen,brush, or mouse to the status of domestic servants of the regime, whose task it is to glorify it on order, according to the worst possible aesthetic conventions.
It goes without saying that we do not identify ourselves with the currently fashionable catchword, ‘Neither fascism nor communism!’ –a shibboleth which suits the temperament of the philistine, conservative and frightened, clinging to the tattered remnants of the ‘democratic’ past. True art, which is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time –true art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society. This it must do, were it only to deliver intellectual creation from the chains which bind it, and to allow all mankind to raise itself to those heights which only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past. We recognize that only the social revolution can sweep clean the path for a new culture.

The communist revolution is not afraid of art. It realizes that the role of the artist in a decadent capitalist society is determined by the conflict between the individual and various social forms which are hostile to him. This fact alone, in so far as he is conscious of it, makes the artist the natural ally of revolution. The process of sublimation, which here comes into play and which psychoanalysis has analyzed, tries to restore the broken equilibrium between the integral ‘ego’ and the outside elements it rejects. This restoration works to the advantage of the ‘ideal of self’, which marshals against the unbearable present reality all those powers of the interior world, of the ‘id’, which are common to all men and which are constantly flowering and developing. The need for emancipation felt by the individual spirit has only to follow its natural course to be led to mingle its stream with this primeval necessity –the need for the emancipation of man.

The conception of the writer’s function which the young Marx worked out is worth recalling. ‘The writer’, he said, ‘naturally must make money in order to live and write, but he should not under any circumstances live and write in order to make money…The writer by no means looks on his work as a means. It is an end in itself and so little a means in the eyes of himself and of others that if necessary he sacrifices his existence to the existence of his work…The first condition of freedom of the press is that it is not a business activity.’

It is more than ever fitting to use this statement against those who would regiment intellectual activity in the direction of ends foreign to itself and prescribe, in the guise of so-called reasons of state, the themes of art. The free choice of these themes and the absence of all restrictions on the range of his exploitations –these are possessions which the artist has a right to claim as inalienable. In the realm of artistic creation, the imagination must escape from all constraint and must under no pretext allow itself to be placed under bonds. To those who urge us, whether for today or for tomorrow, to consent that art should submit to a discipline which we hold to be radically incompatible with its nature, we give a flat refusal and we repeat our deliberate intention of standing by the formula complete freedom for art.

We recognize, of course, that the revolutionary state has the right to defend itself against the counterattack of the bourgeoisie, even when this drapes itself in the flag of science or art. But there is an abyss between these enforced and temporary measures of revolutionary self-defense and the pretension to lay commands on intellectual creation. If, for the better development of the forces of material production, the revolution must build a socialist regime with centralized control, to develop intellectual creation an anarchist regime of individual liberty should from the first be established. No authority, no dictation, not the least trace of orders from above! Only on a base of friendly cooperation, without constraint from outside, will it be possible for scholars and artists to carry out their tasks, which will be more far-reaching than ever before in history.

It should be clear by now that in defending freedom of thought we have no intention of justifying political indifference, and that it is far from our wish to revive a so-called pure art which generally serves the extremely impure ends of reaction. No, our conception of the role of art is too high to refuse it an influence on the fate of society. We believe that the supreme task of art in our epoch is to take part actively and consciously in the preparation of the revolution. But the artist cannot serve the struggle for freedom unless he subjectively assimilates its social content, unless he feels in his very nerves its meaning and drama and freely seeks to give his own inner world incarnation in his art.

In the present period of the death agony of capitalism, democratic as well as fascist, the artist sees himself threatened with the loss of his right to live and continue working. He sees all avenues of communication choked with the debris of capitalist collapse. It is only natural that he should turn to blogging, which holds out the possibility of escaping from his isolation. But if he is to avoid complete demoralisation he cannot remain there, because of the impossibility of delivering his own message and the degrading servility which these organisations exact from him in exchange for certain material advantages. He must understand that his place is elsewhere, not among those who betray the cause of the revolution, and of mankind, but among those who with unshaken fidelity bear witness to the revolution; among those who, for this reason, are alone able to bring it to fruition, and along with it the ultimate free expression of all forms of human genius .

The aim of this appeal is to find a common ground on which all revolutionary writers and artists may be reunited, the better to serve the revolution by their art and to defend the liberty of that art itself against the usurpers of the revolution. We believe that aesthetic, philosophical and political tendencies of the most varied sort can find here a common ground. Marxists can march here together with anarchists.

We know very well that thousands on thousands of isolated thinkers and artists are today scattered throughout the world, their voices drowned out by the loud choruses of well-disciplined liars. Hundreds of small blog sites are trying to gather youthful forces about them, seeking new paths and not subsidies. Every progressive tendency in art is marginilized by fascism as ‘degenerate’. Every free creation is called ‘fascist’ by the Stalinists. Independent revolutionary art must now gather its forces for the struggle against reactionary persecution. It must proclaim aloud the right to exist. Such a union of forces is the aim of the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art which we believe it is now necessary to form.

We by no means insist on every idea put forth in this manifesto, which we ourselves consider only a first step in the direction. We urge every friend and defender of art, who cannot but realize the necessity for this appeal, to make himself heard at once. We address the same appeal to all those publications of the left which are ready to participate in the creation of the International Federation and to consider its task and its methods of action.

When a preliminary international contact has been established through the press and by correspondence, we will proceed to the organization of local and national congresses on a modest scale. The final step will be the assembly of a world congress which will officially mark the foundation of the International Federation.

Our aims:

The independence of art — for the revolution.

The revolution — for the complete liberation of art!

Art from all – to liberate us from our dialectical dilemma.

Andre Breton
Diego Rivera
Javier Hernandez-Miyares